A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk as part of a lecture series here at The University of Texas at Dallas. The series is part of the events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the University, and as such I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a stab at looking at the future of the University. The video of this lecture is now available. But, a couple of warnings/disclosures before you view it. The audio is good, but not great, as every once in a while there is interference. Also the first five minutes of the video is a bit shaky, but if you get through that the video quality gets really good. Special thanks to two of our EMAC students who made this possible (Kim & Adam).
My central claim is that the organization of the University is based on a factory/print broadcast, model of knowledge creation and dissemination, and thus is ill prepared (or perhaps cannot make the transition) into the new knowledge landscape.
Watch below, or click thru to the larger version.
The question and answer portion of this talk was really good, and maybe I can get it posted here in the future.
A few references:
There are two key inspirations for this talk.
- 1. Michael Wesch, particularly his talk at The University of Manitoba.
- 2. Mark Pesce particularly several talks he gave on the future of education, and the crucial concept of hyperconnectivity.
Other references:
- The Shirky reference is from Here Comes Everybody. I think at times Shirky can be overly praising of the network, without being critical enough, but his reflections on journalism and the internet are spot on, and help me to think through parallel changes in academia.
- The Sir Ken Robinson reference is to this TED talk, but he makes this point in other venues as well.
- “Transparency is the New Objectivity” is a phrase I first heard from Dave Weinberger, although I don’t know if he is the origin.
I liked Perry’s idea about focussing on the value being provided rather than being tied to mode. I think that this is something English lit has never asked itself and wouldn’t like the answer to if it did care to look. This is actually a big topic in marketing as well, where students are taught not to define their business as their product for exactly the reasons Perry outlines. You aren’t in the railroad business, you are in either the personal transportation or bulk industrial transportation or maybe just a generic transportation business.
To that point, I’d suggest that your focus on textual practices is too suggestively limiting. Not that you’re wrong about that being what the discipline is about, but that maybe that’s why it’s becoming irrelevant to other disciplines. It’s being interpreted as meaning only words count in an exclusionary way, which is a interdisciplinary mistake I think.
Your reference to the legal issue where lit students have trouble adapting to legal writing is not uncommon at all. That’s true in nearly all professional or technical writing. I would argue that this is one of the major problems that crossover discipline students have when dealing with English writing as well. The external discipline students are left to discover on their own what English writing means, including realizing that it is not necessarily compatible with writing in their core disciplines.
For a contrasting example, in marketing, properly written internal documents are written to make it easy for the reader not to read them. Written properly, a 10 page marketing document could meet the needs of the reader in maybe 50 words, with the reader skipping everything else and both author and reader considering that a good outcome. This is done intentionally on both sides. The time of the reader is valuable, and they are familiar with the topic already. There is a premium on brevity, simplicity and standardization, and not being verbose. The document is structured so that the reader can skip to the sections they care about or have questions around, and highlight the point being made. The reader only reads supporting information if they need more detail or want to verify the thinking and data behind the statements. The general expectation is that 90-95% of the document won’t be read, and shouldn’t need to be. The 5-10% which does get read will vary by reader and what is important for the purpose at hand, so the rest of it is not useless. That extra writing does need to be there and is not optional. This is how marketing defines good writing.
Now try to think of an English lit course that teaches the value of using tables, section headings, pictures, bolding or italicizing, or block structured arguments to make the writing easy for the reader to skip over or ignore.
Perhaps you have ever heard of the complaints of googling books and so on as destroying the value of books because authors can be misinterpreted when read ‘out of context’ or as the result of text searching and skipping. From the perspective of professional writing, this sums up what is wrong with English lit. There is no excuse for a document to be so haphazard as to be possible to be taken out of context merely by skipping to the point. Maybe google books and text searching will force a moment of reckoning between English and professional writing.
Fields like marketing use document structure to divide the documents into independent sections, and sections themselves are further divisible into points and topics. Even if you see a section of bullet points, the author might bold one word in each bullet as the only word in the entire bullet that needs reading. The heading of the section tells you the purpose or topic, the bullets might be the meat, the bolded or italicized word are the one word in each bullet which conveys the entire essence of the point in a single word. It will probably even be the first word in the bullet to standardize the location.
This isn’t to say that English lit students couldn’t pick these things up on their own, on-the-job as it were. But it isn’t taught to them, so even if they do I don’t believe English lit can take credit if their students pick up good professional document writing skills, except perhaps indirectly through critical thinking abilities.
In fact I think English lit fails professional and tech writing in at least 4 areas:
-They are not taught to write to reader expectations and for the manner in which the reader would like to read it. This includes respecting the time of the reader and their need to skip the parts already known.
-They are taught writing values that are contrary to professional values (eg, that documents are writer-centric; that being verbose, using uncommon word-choice, or having sprawling overlapping arguments is ok; etc).
-As a discipline they ignore the value of document structure in conveying information, and allowing the reader to "seek" to the portions they care about.
Document structure is a big deal in professional writing, maybe as much as 40% of the value of the writing is the structure, and it’s an alien concept in English lit. The structure matters because it is what turns a 500 page wall of text, into 5 paragraph searchable independent sections. And what turns sections into single tables or words that convey the essence of the section in perhaps as little as a 1-5 words.
-In tech writing in particular, there is a danger of the writer having a lack of context. If you don’t know anything about technology, it’s hard to write technical documents about it that are coherent to someone with technical expertise. If because of a lack of technical background, you don’t understand the acronyms or topic that you are writing about, it raises some dangers. In technical writing especially, there are a lot of very picky assumptions that must not be breached, which are inherent in the topic. If you lack technical context, then at best you are writing in a straight-jacket, afraid to step outside unknown boundaries and thus it is hard for you to deliver specific and meaningful content.
Would you rather have a technical document written for you by someone who could write well, or by someone who knew what the words meant? Show me an English student that has taken three 100 level programming courses and I’ll believe you if you say they make good technical writers. If you laugh reading that, then know that employers do the same when they hear the technical writing claim.
So I guess, whatever English lit is purporting to teach, it isn’t interdisciplinary in nature, and only partially transferrable.
This comment was originally posted on digital digs
I liked Parry’s idea about focussing on the value being provided rather than being tied to existing product. I think that this is something English lit has never asked itself and wouldn’t like the answer to if it did care to look. This is actually a big topic in marketing as well, where students are taught not to define their business as their product for exactly the reasons Parry outlines. You aren’t in the railroad business, you are in either the personal transportation or bulk industrial transportation or maybe just a generic transportation business.
To that point, I’d suggest that your focus on textual practices is too suggestively limiting. Not that you’re wrong about that being what the discipline is about, but that maybe that’s why it’s becoming irrelevant to other disciplines. It’s being interpreted as meaning only words count in an exclusionary way, which is a interdisciplinary mistake I think. I don’t even think you meant it that way necessarily, but it does suggest that to people so inclined to ignore other types of communication.
Your reference to the legal issue where lit students have trouble adapting to legal writing is not uncommon. That’s true in much of professional or technical writing. I would argue that this is one of the major problems that crossover discipline students have when dealing with English writing as well. The external discipline students are left to discover on their own what English writing means, including realizing that it is not necessarily compatible with writing in their core disciplines.
For a contrasting example, in marketing, properly written internal documents are written to make it easy for the reader not to read them. Written properly, a 10 page marketing document could meet the needs of the reader in maybe 50 words, with the reader skipping everything else and both author and reader considering that a good outcome. This is done intentionally on both sides. The time of the reader is valuable, and they are familiar with the topic already. There is a premium on brevity, simplicity and standardization, and not being verbose. The document is structured so that the reader can skip to the sections they care about or have questions around, and highlight the point being made. The reader only reads supporting information if they need more detail or want to verify the thinking and data behind the statements. The general expectation is that 90-95% of the document won’t be read, and shouldn’t need to be. The 5-10% which does get read will vary by reader and what is important for the purpose at hand, so the rest of it is not useless. That extra writing does need to be there and is not optional. This is how marketing defines good writing.
Now try to think of an English lit course that teaches the value of using tables, section headings, pictures, bolding or italicizing, or block structured arguments to make the writing easy for the reader to skip over or ignore.
Perhaps you have ever heard of the complaints of googling books and so on as destroying the value of books because authors can be misinterpreted when read ‘out of context’ or as the result of text searching and skipping. From the perspective of professional writing, this sums up what is wrong with English lit. There is no excuse for a document to be so haphazard as to be possible to be taken out of context merely by skipping to the point. Maybe google books and text searching will force a moment of reckoning between English and professional writing.
Fields like marketing use document structure to divide the documents into independent sections, and sections themselves are further divisible into points and topics. Even if you see a section of bullet points, the author might bold one word in each bullet as the only word in the entire bullet that needs reading. The heading of the section tells you the purpose or topic, the bullets might be the meat, the bolded or italicized word are the one word in each bullet which conveys the entire essence of the point in a single word. It will probably even be the first word in the bullet to standardize the location.
This isn’t to say that English lit students couldn’t pick these things up on their own, on-the-job as it were. But if it isn’t taught to them, then even if they do I don’t believe English lit can take credit if their students pick up good professional document writing skills, except perhaps indirectly through critical thinking abilities.
I think English lit drops the ball on professional and tech writing in a few areas:
-They are not taught to write to a professions standards or expectations and for the manner in which the reader would like to read it. This includes respecting the time of the reader and their need to skip the parts already known, as well as accepted terminology (ie, jargon).
-They are taught writing values that are contrary to professional values (eg, that documents are writer-centric; that being verbose, using uncommon word-choice, or having sprawling overlapping arguments is ok; etc).
-As a discipline they ignore the value of document structure in conveying information, and allowing the reader to "seek" to the portions they care about.
Document structure is a big deal in professional writing, maybe as much as 40% of the value of the writing is the structure, and it’s an alien concept in English lit. The structure matters because it is what turns a 500 page wall of text, into 5 paragraph searchable independent sections. And what turns sections into single tables or words that convey the essence of the section in perhaps as little as a 1-5 words.
-In tech writing in particular, there is a danger of the writer having a lack of context. If you don’t know anything about technology, it’s hard to write technical documents about it that are coherent to someone with technical expertise. If because of a lack of technical background, you don’t understand the acronyms or topic that you are writing about, it raises some dangers. In technical writing especially, there are a lot of very picky assumptions that must not be breached, which are inherent in the topic. If you lack technical context, then at best you are writing in a straight-jacket, afraid to step outside unknown boundaries and thus it is hard for you to deliver specific and meaningful content.
So I guess, whatever English lit is purporting to teach, it isn’t interdisciplinary in nature.
This comment was originally posted on digital digs
As always Skydaemon, I appreciate your response. I fundamentally agree with you, though I may see a few points somewhat differently. Having taught and run a professional writing major for 8 years, I dealt with these issues head on. Of course many of the students at Cortland were interested in creative writing rather than technical or professional writing, but we always stressed the importance of combining instruction in writing with developing subject matter expertise. In short, the requisite knowledge for a computer programmer and a technical writer in the computing industry overlap but also differ. Few students will go from HS to competent technical writer in the space of a four-year degree; the same would be true in most technical fields.
I do think that the well-designed contemporary English major could offer students the flexibility to be prepared for an entry-level technical writing, marketing, or PR job, especially if the major is combined with a relevant minor or second major. Alternately you could flip it around an minor in English.
In terms of writing instruction, I have always felt that an English major ought to ask students to write in a variety of genres, media, and rhetorical situations. And develop the rhetorical skills to analyze and respond to new writing tasks. To do this you might include service writing, internships, and study abroad, along with a variety of in-class assignments.
That said, I agree with you in general about the things that English lit classes don’t do. Of course, they were never intended to do such things. And there remains a fair amount of resistance across the humanities to altering the curriculum to pursue more direct professionalization. And while I see the point of professionalizing, in a real way, if English became a professionalizing degree it would really cease to be English. And maybe that’s the future, but until then I have this other idea.
Maybe professional writing curricula ought to be a part of every English degree. I wouldn’t argue against that. But I think that we still need to argue for the value of literary studies knowledge, methods, and pedagogies for undergraduate students. I know that the faculty in English believe in the value of their work. I also know the may have the tenure and academic freedom to turn away from making such an argument. But in the end students have voted and will continue to vote with their feet. Without the students, the discipline will die. So we need to explain to students the value of majoring in English.
In short. Imagine your 18 and entering college for the first time. There are 100 majors to choose among. You think you know what English is because you had it in HS. That could work for us or against us. Fortunately, we have first-year composition as a place where we see nearly every student and where we have a chance to get our message out over one or two semesters.
So what do we say about English? What can you do here?
-you will develop your creativity and personal expression
-you will write in different genres and media
-you will learn about culture and communication through the study of literature and other media
You can combine English with another more technical or specifically professionalizing major if you want, but English should help you develop a deeper, broader cultural context for analyzing specific communication challenges and the general rhetorical and creative skills to be a successful communicator.
Is our discipline doing those things now? In some places and in some ways, yes. Do we have a long way to go and a short time to get there? Likely.
This comment was originally posted on digital digs
I do not work at a Uni but am a teacher. The best education is face to face, one to one combined with a cohort of same level learners; people will pay for this. Unis provide a framework for tutors to earn a living – $99 does not go far – maybe in future the quality of your degree certificate will depend on the teachers that you “pay” to autograph it.
The internet is a (big) part of the solution but not the full answer. Finally Blackboard too has its place, if only to differentiate by giving authority to the content.
This is nice lecture David – thanks very much for sharing it. I’ve been doing some thinking along these lines myself. I’m not certain that we can fully pull knowledge out of all of the other functions of universities – everything else ends up being a fairly central part of the university business model. This will probably provide at least a little bit of buffer for universities to react to the networked world (whether this will actually help them respond in time is certainly still questionable). I’m still working through my thoughts on this though, so I’m not sure I can engage in too much more of a discussion about it right now…
Also, I’m really glad to see that I’m not the only person who has picked up ‘right’ as a pause filler through watching Clay Shirky talks!
Agee w/@academicdave: University ill prepared to transition into new knowledge creation. http://bit.ly/ho4TZ Includes good references
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Your presentation is EXTREMELY similar to one by Michael J. Jensen last year here at Texas A&M University.
Scholarly Authority in the Age of Abundance: Retaining Algorithmic Relevance in the New Landscape